I have looked up the 1901 and 1911 UK Census documents and found that my Grandfather is listed in both archives as part of the British army records of the day.

1901 Census – at Glen Parva Barracks, Leicestershire

In the 1901 census, Grandad was at Glen Parva Barracks (Headquarters, 17th Regimental District), nr Leicester. On the night of Sunday 31st March 1901, he is listed (pg 12, Line 5) as George W Oliffe (note spelling) of Acton, London, (London then crossed out, Mdx added), Single, Age 16, Private, Leicestershire Regiment.

1911 Census – at Talavera Barracks, Aldershot, Hampshire

In the 1911 census, Grandad was based at Talavera Barracks (Part area 11C), Wellington Lines, Aldershot, nr Farnham. On the night of Sunday 2nd April 1911, he is listed (pg 7, Line 27) as George Oliffe of Acton Middlesex, Single, Age 26, Private, 1st Leicestershire Regiment, Occupation Musician. The commanding officer is recorded as Major General H M Lawson, GB.

The Leicestershire Regiment was formed as the county regiment on 1 July 1881. It had first been raised as the 17th Foot in 1688. The regimental depot was at Glen Parva, and the regiment consisted of: The 1st and 2nd Battalions (formerly the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 17th Foot), 3rd (Militia) Battalion (formerly the Leicestershire Militia) and 1st Leicestershire Rifle Volunteer Corps, redesignated as the 1st Volunteer Battalion in 1883.

Prior to 1881, the 17th Regiment of Foot did not have a depot in Leicestershire. Under the prevailing brigade system, regiments shared a brigade depot. However, with the army reforms of that year, the 17th became the Leicestershire Regiment and the 27th Brigade depot was abolished. The army was reorganised along territorial lines and each county regiment was to have its own depot. That of the Leicestershire Regiment was the newly built Glen Parva barracks near South Wigston.

I recently located Grandad’s Long Service Attestation in the National Archives at Kew. He signed up for 12 years, not the 21 years my father had previously suggested. His army record is fascinating and runs to four pages (I have the A3 photocopies of all four). I also found a George Olliffe (right spelling, wrong person) b. 1856 in Stow-on-the-Wold, who joined the Grenadier Guards!

Grandad joined the Leicestershire Regiment(the Tigers) at Hounslow Recruiting Office. It’s clear that he was previously from the Brentford District Schools (Percy School) at the time of joining. He stayed for 12 years ‘with the Colours’, spending almost a third of his service in India. He left the Army on 5th February 1913 (as a ‘time expired’ soldier, so was not called up for WW1).

The second page of the army record is telling and records his description:

Age: 15 years, 11 months

Height: 5 feet

Weight: 93 lbs (just 6 ½ stone which seems shockingly underweight?)

Chest: 31 / 32 inches

Complexion: Medium

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Brown

Religion: Church of England

Next of Kin: Father, William Oliffe. Brentford Union

This section of distinguishing marks also concerned me – does this record instances of workhouse abuse?

Tattooed on both forearms

Scars: back of right hand, knee, back of head, left elbow, right buttock, front of chest

Page three – ‘Statement of Services’ of 6050 George William Oliffe (italics mine)

Posted to Leicester Depot on 5th February 1901 (for recruit training)

Attained 3rd class Certificate of Education 16th April 1901

Granted 1st Good Conduct Badge 4th February 1903

Attained 18 years old on 4th March 1903 (date and age possibly suspect?)

(In the UK – at Shorncliffe, Kent and Aldershot, Hants – through to February 1913)

Discharged on the termination of his first period of engagement 3rd February 1913

Signed by: R.S Dyer-Bennett Lt for Captain Adjt Leicester Regs.

Footnote: ‘Troopship HMT Dongola was built for the P & O Shipping Company by Barclay, Curle and Coy in Glasgow. She was launched on 14th September 1905 and saw service on the company’s Far East services. From 1906 she was taken up for seasonal trooping by the War Office between England, India and Hong Kong. In 1915 she was requisitioned and used as a hospital ship at Gallipoli. She was sold for scrapping to T W Ward Ltd of Barrow in Furness, in June 1926′.

India: 6/3/1903 to 9/11/1906 – 3 ¾ years in India (at Madras and Belgaum, south of Goa)

Home: 10/11/1906 to 3/2/1913 – 6 ¼ years in UK (first Shorncliffe, Kent and then Aldershot)

BELGAUM, a town and district of British India, in the southern division of Bombay. The town is situated nearly 2500 ft. above sea-level; it has a station on the Southern Mahratta railway, 245 m. S. of Poona. It has an ancient fortress, dating apparently from 1519, covering about I 00 acres, and surrounded by a ditch; within it are two interesting Jain temples. Belgaum contains a cantonment which is the headquarters of a brigade in the 6th division of the western army corps. It is also a considerable centre of trade and of cotton weaving. There are cotton mills. Pop. (1901) 36,878.

Grandad joined the British army in the same year that Field Marshall Frederick, 1st Earl Roberts 1832-1914 (author of 41 Years in India: 2 vols) became the last Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. During Grandad’s time in the army, British power in India was at its height and as an Army Bandsman – a clarinetist – he would have been at the centre of its pomp and ceremony.

The regimental music of the Leicestershire Regiment, which my Grandfather would have played can be heard here.

To my mind, the British Army seems to have been the making of Grandad. Essentially he escaped to another world, but one which he presumably understood well; yet another institution as it so obviously was. Perhaps he simply swapped one set of known rules for another?

The garrisoning of India and the Colonies was a priority for the British Imperial army. Rudyard Kipling wrote ‘The Absent-minded Beggar (1899); a jingoistic poem about the role of the ordinary soldier in defending the Empire. Grandad came into the army in this same late Victorian period. My Father remembers him reminiscing happily about India; he obviously enjoyed his experience and talked about ‘having a servant and keeping a monkey’.

Barnes in History of Regiments and Uniforms of the British Army (Peacetime soldiering, p223) records something very similar:

In India, the private solder of the period lived a Gentleman’s life. He had native servants to do all the dirty work and could even get the ‘nappy’ with his little lamp and portable kit to come and shave him whilst he lay in bed. Various pets were kept. Barracks were spacious, the country itself was full of interest with fishing and shooting for all who desired it and there was sport, dances and the social life. From this period came the Hindustani words: Cushy, Blighty, Chit and Roti’.

The Green Tiger Journal contains many references to Pte. Oliffe playing Cricket and Hockey for the Regiment.

Playing Cricket for the Regiment in 1907 and 1909

P40: ‘The cricket season has now commenced, though no regimental match has yet been played. On the 11th May the Band (Lewis 21, Hinch 20) beat a local team, Holy Trinity Church, by an innings and 34 runs, 95 to 21 and 40, Oliffe performing the hat-trick’.

‘We started by pressing, and a good deal of loose play in front of the Bedfords’ goal resulted in shots from Oliffe and Cunningham which just went wide … our forwards were constantly pressing. The home team was: Daft, goal; Capt. Challenor and Nott, backs; Gandy, Richardson and Brookes, half-backs; Capt Creagh, Pepper, Cunningham, Lieut. Yalland, and Oliffe, forwards’.

Reading Grandads’ army record and these numerous sporting entries in the Green Tiger Journals, I have the sense that his life significantly improved and that he never looked back. He spent 12 years in the army and whilst not rising in the ranks, (he remained a private to the end), kept his head down and was awarded several ‘Good Conduct’ badges. He had joined just after the Boer War (1899-1902) ended and when he left the army in 1913, aged 28 (or was he possibly 30?), he was a ‘time-expired’ solder and as such legitimately avoided being called up for the Great War.

I only wish that I’d had the chance to have heard more about his experiences from him when I was growing up in the 60’s. He died in 1969. My memories consist mainly of an elderly, blind man in a dark suit wearing spectacles. He was clearly so much more than that!

He’d had quite a life, not all of it pleasant but he had obviously made the most of the hand he’d been dealt.

George (and Ethel) Olliffe are buried in the Backwalls cemetery at Stow-on-the-Wold in Gloucestershire.

Just 100 years ago in 1912, my Grandfather was one year away from the end of 12 years with the Colours and his discharge from 1st Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment (The Tigers).

This is Part 1 of his story …

In 1885, William Gladstone was Prime Minister for the second time, General Gordon had been killed by the Muslim Mahdi in Egypt and Imperial Britain was at the very height of its colonial power. Queen Victoria then ruled over the largest Empire the world has ever known. Yet whole sections of the British population were desperately poor and, unbelievably, were considered by the ‘Poor Laws’ as being responsible for their own plight.

This hugely unjust and unequal society was held together by the thin veneer of deference and Victorian Christianity. Mrs Alexander’s well known hymn, ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ summed up the social dogma of the time: The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly and orders their estate’. That particular stanza is always omitted now!

In either 1883 or 1885 (depending on the record), my Grandfather was born to his father, William. From what we know, he appears not to have known his mother. At age 6, because it ‘all became too much for his father’ (my own father’s words), he was one of many thousands incarcerated in that terrible human dumping-ground for the Victorian poor; the Union Workhouse. In Grandads’ case, he lived at Percy House, Isleworth, the school attached to the Brentford Workhouse, now the site of West Middlesex University Hospital.

The Brentford Poor Law Union included 10 Middlesex parishes of which Acton was one.

The threat of the Union workhouse was intended to act as a deterrent to the able-bodied pauper. This was a principle enshrined in the revival of the “workhouse test” — poor relief would only be granted to those desperate enough to face entering the repugnant conditions of the workhouse. If an able-bodied man entered the workhouse, his whole family had to enter with him. Life inside the workhouse was intended to be as off-putting as possible. Men, women, children, the infirm, and the able-bodied were housed separately and given very basic and monotonous food such as watery porridge called gruel, or bread and cheese. (Source: www.workhouses.org.uk )

When Grandad joined the British army on 3rd February 1901, my Great-Grandfather, William Olliffe’s address was listed as Brentford Union, so he was obviously an inmate of the Victorian Poor House. When William eventually died, the question arises: did he actually pass away in the workhouse?

I’m told William was buried in Acton Cemetery, Grave no. 82.

The Percy House Schools, lent by the Brentford Board of Guardians, were located to the west of the Brentford Union workhouse. Opened in 1883 by the politician Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke (1843-1911), the Brentford workhouse school had been enlarged in 1901 and renamed Percy House after a local landowner, the Duke of Northumberland. The two-storey central administration block fronted onto Twickenham Road and contained offices, a chapel, a dining hall, the kitchens and storerooms. Flanking it were 3-storey wings containing accommodation for 280 children (boys in the north wing and girls in the south). The Building was demolished in 1978. (Source: www.workhouses.org.uk )

Grandad stayed there for at least 10 years and I can’t think it did him much good other than possibly keeping him alive. He left just before his 16th birthday to join The Leicesters; he was only 5 ft tall, weighed less than 7 stones (95 lbs) and his army medical lists a horrifying catalogue of scars all over his body. I couldn’t help but wonder just how these injuries were inflicted?

I have studied the 1891 UK Census documents and these confirm that my Grandfather was indeed a resident at Percy House.

On the night of Sunday April 5th 1891, Grandad is listed (Pg 8, Line 14) at Percy House (part of the Brentford Union Workhouse); Male, age 6, ‘Scholar’ (or more likely today, Pauper), born Acton, Middlesex. His name is spelt: George Olliff. The census is headed ‘Return of all persons who slept in the Institution on night of etc’ and Page 1 is clearly marked, Percy House. Sadly, there is no mistake!

I suspect that Grandad remained at Percy House School from 1891 until 1901 when he joined the army, as many poorhouse boys then did.

Many District Schools had a school band through which, for boys with a musical aptitude, could lead to a career in the army as a military bandsman.

On page 1 of the census the staff of Percy House are listed as ‘Officers’: George and Sarah Williams, age 33 & 34 from Esher, Surrey (respectively Superintendent / Headmaster and Matron of the School), followed by 7 single officers of the school and 14 servants including cooks and housemaids, aged from 16 to 51 (Jane White, a widow and infants attendant). Of these 23 officers and servants, only 5 were male including the Head, two schoolmasters and two stokers.

Kay proposed a grandiose scheme for establishing a hundred similar “District” schools across England and Wales each accommodating around 500 children who would be separated from what he saw as the polluting association with the adult workhouse inmates. In such institutions, he claimed, poor law children “would not be daily taught the daily lesson of dependence, of which the whole apparatus of a workhouse is the symbol… the district school would assume a character of hopefulness and enterprise better fitted to prepare the children for conflict with the perils and difficulties of a struggle for independence than anything which their present situation affords.” (Source: www.workhouses.org.uk )

I’ve pieced together the main events of Grandfather’s life but was hampered throughout by the various official spellings of his surname, a difficulty that persists even to this day for the rest of us!

There is confusion over George Olliffe’s second name. His entire army record notes it as William whereas by the time of his marriage and on my own parents marriage certificate, George’s second name is recorded as James. I suspect that it always was James but that at his enlistment he gave his Father’s name as his second name, either out of confusion or ignorance?

On leaving the army, George played in a Dance Band and got a job as a high level crane driver at the London Power Company (then a private company) at Acton Lane Power Station. He had a head for heights and got the job as it involved walking along a girder to the cab of the crane. He fell once. My Father remembers walking to the Power Station with his mother at the week-ends with his father’s lunch. My eldest brother remembers being taken by his Grandad there at two years old and riding on the foot-plate of the steam engine whilst it shunted backwards and forwards with the coal!

Grandad was originally dead set against Christianity but turned to Christ during this period, influenced by the prayer and Gospel meetings of the Early Plymouth Brethren and by the Christian witness of his Parents-in-Law, Samuel and Julia Kerry.

Grandad had married Ethel J. King, nee Kerry in 1918 following the wartime death of her first husband, Alfred King. They lived at 54 Denbigh Road, Church Road, (Taylors Lane), Willesden, NW10. Grandad became a father at the age of 35. My Father was born in September 1920 during the final years of the last British Liberal PM, David Lloyd George.

54 Denbigh Road, Willesden was an upstairs flat. In 1920, the weekly rent was 11 shillings (60p). The Downstairs neighbours were the Hortins. My Grandmother and Mrs Hortin were pregnant at the same time. The midwife suggested the babies’ names (Douglas and Ronald) and so my father – who came along first – was actually named by the midwife! Ronnie Hortin went to Malaysia and died under the Japanese. He never came home.

My own parents were bombed out of London in the late 1940’s, courtesy of one of Hitler’s ‘Doodlebug’ rockets. They moved in with my Grandparents who by then had moved to 258, North Circular Road. Eventually they all moved to the Cotswold town of Stow on the Wold in the 1950’s. Grandad died in East View Old People’s home(a previous Union Workhouse) in Back Walls in October 1969. By then he was completely blind.

To me it feels somewhat sad that Grandad started and ended his life in two Union Workhouse buildings.